Tuesday, May 20, 2014

Overtraining is a slow and silent killer. When most people
think “injury” they think a physical ailment, but what happens when your engine
gives out before your body?

You aren’t healthy and
you enter into a secret psychological warfare with yourself. That’s what
happens.

Pain is useful. It is a mechanism so your brain can
recognize when you are doing something harmful to your body. Your hamstring
isn’t hurting just to piss you off, it’s hurting to get through to your stubborn,
goal-oriented mind that maybe, just maybe, it needs a rest day.

The issue with overtraining is that you don’t have these
clear-cut, painful warning signs to ignore. You, instead, have signs that make
you question your own mental strength.

Luckily, I am going to give you my list of clear-cut warning
signs.

Progression of overtraining:

1.Easy runs feel hard

Do not force easy runs. The “if my easy runs
are faster, then it means I’m really fit and my hard workouts should be faster
too” training philosophy is just plain crazy.

Solution: Slow down

2.You have a stank attitude for a few days.

As a crazy runner, you will
probably be inclined to give yourself the Don’t-be-a-baby-and-game-up talk.
This is noble. If you do this for more than 3 days in a row, you go from being
noble to being a fool. Those hormones that control recovery? They are the same
hormones that control your mood. Being Mrs. stank pants is your brain and body
working together convincing you to take the day off.

Solution: Take the day off

3.You can’t finish races.

Not that you just slow down, but that
you slow down and your entire body locks up to the point where grandmas could
pass you.

This symptom mimics being out of
shape. So that crazy person inside of you will try to convince you that more
work is needed for a better finish. This perpetuates the overtraining.

Solution: Take a few days of slow running with strides until your
legs don’t feel like they weigh a million pounds.

4.Your workouts become spotty.

Where you can’t fake races, you can fake
workouts. Until you can’t.

That 60 second 400m repeat feels
like a 53second 400m. I know it doesn’t make sense. You could cruise 60-second
quarters all day one week, and 3 weeks later you regressed. WTF happened? You
will probably work hard to convince yourself that you got out of shape while
working out over the past 3 weeks. You didn’t. That doesn’t even make sense.

Solution: Take 2 days completely off and don’t even think about
running. Just do it (Nike plug), trust me.

5.You feel tired. All the time. And can’t sleep.

This is bad. You have ignored signs
in your running life for so long that now your non-running life is out of whack.
Your hormones are about to go into shit-hit-the-fan mode.

Solution: Sleep as much as you can. Cut out all caffeine.

6.You don’t have an appetite.

Your body trying hard to shut you
down.

Solution: Make yourself eat as much as possible. Bump up the
calories. Over sleeping and eating will hopefully trigger your
stressed-out-of-its-mind mind that it is not in a state of warfare.

7.Complete apathy.

I have never been depressed, but I
assume it is something like being this over trained. At this level you don’t
even realize or care that your running has gone to pieces. George Clooney could
sucker punch you and you would have no emotional response.

Solution: You, my friend, need a mini retirement from running. You
are in a deep hole and time is the only thing to fill it.

Monday, May 5, 2014

Most of the time when I tell people I’m a profesh track
athlete, I get a blank stare where people attempt to comprehend what that even
means. But every once and a while I get a knowledgeable track athlete that has
been waiting for this moment. The moment where they can word vomit a whole slew
of questions that they have carefully constructed at long runs and cool downs
and post race parties. Questions they think that I, as a professional, have the
secret answers to.

Here’s how the bad race usually plays out: Usually it starts
way before the gun goes off. Like days before. It could be triggered by a bad
practice, a not-feeling-so-go-for-whatever-reason couple of days, or nerves.

Or sometimes the bad race starts at the warm up. You don’t
feel so hot and over analyze it, and BOOM, you are stuck in a negativity cloud
waiting to demolish all dreams of a good race.

And sometimes, like for me that Friday, the bad race starts
100m in to the race.

I waltzed on that track like I would coast to a PR.
Practices had been going great. My mileage is up. I was feeling good. And I had
completely forgotten about the pain that accompanies the 1500m. I totally
thought I would PR without pushing myself. I thought that because I am probably
an idiot.

At 300m I came through in a pretty slow split and didn’t
feel stellar. There is one thing you shouldn’t do when that happens: Hit the
panic switch. So I hit the panic switch. If the 1st 300m feel
shitty, imagine how shitty the last 300m will feel! This is the kind of logic
that leads you straight to the last place with your tail between your legs.

After a bad race, you enter what I call post-race
depression. PRD is terrifying because:

A.You feel like you aren’t worthy of being a
human. I am not sure why for a short time after a race you define your entire
identity as a number, but you do. Sometimes that number is 1.58 which is code
for: YOU ARE TOTALLY BAD ASS! And sometimes it’s 4.22, which is code for: YOU
DON’T EVEN DESERVE TO BE HERE!

B.If you aren’t careful you can end up in the
endless-bad-race-negativity-loop.

So the easiest way not to have a bad race: Don’t have a bad
race. There, simple. But unfortunately, completely unrealistic.

Here are my steps in preventing the endless-bad-race-negativity-loop.

1.Long
cool down.

Cool down until your emotions subside. I use
headphones so people won’t talk to me.
And sunglasses so people can’t tell I’m teary eyed. This is my time to be
embarrassed and have some self-pity. But this is my only time to do so.

2.Short
term memory.

This is easier said than done. Don’t let
your CD skip reliving the nightmare. It’s not going to change regardless of how
many times you replay it. In fact. You will only feel worse about yourself.

3.Go eat
dinner with your team.

And get dessert. I, too, wanted to clam up
in shame and embarrassment and punish myself by going to bed with no dinner and
no socializing. This makes you feel sorry for yourself and makes you have a bad
association with racing. Don’t do it.

4.Joke
about it.

Not all the time, maybe just once, and MAKE
SURE it is in a light hearted kind of way, instead of an I’m-a-crappy-runner
kind of way. Like I found the Flotrack gang and acted offended at why they
didn’t want my interview!

5.Sit down with coach and go over what you
should potentially change for next time. Don’t dwell, just hit the major
mistakes and possible means of improvement.

Remember, nothing is unfixable. So be pumped you have
something to improve on.

And people only remember you by your best races,
not your epic blow ups. I’m still a pretty damn good runner. And you probably
are too, so remember those good times (literally).